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There’s a glass of white wine already waiting for me beside a glass of ice water, but I just sip at it lightly. The doctor had warned me it wasn’t a good idea to drink, but after this morning, I feel like I needsomething, even if it’s just a sip to take the edge off.
“How are things?” Sofia asks gently, looking up at me as she scans the menu. “You’ve been quiet lately. I’ve hardly heard from you, except to ask if we could get lunch today.”
“It’s been—difficult,” I admit, glancing at the menu myself. It gives me an excuse not to look up and see the worry in Sofia’s face.
“Has he been cruel to you? Hurt you?” Sofia leans forward, her eyes narrowing. “Because Luca—”
“No.” I shake my head. “We’ve fought, but he hasn’t hurt me. He hasn’t even been particularly cruel, really. There’s just—a lot that’s been unexpected.”
“Like?” Sofia asks and then quickly catches herself. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just—I’m here if you do.”
“I know.” I push the menu aside. I’m not really hungry, although I’ll order something and force myself to eat it. The doctor at the fertility clinic had commented about my being underweight and how that might impact my ability to get pregnant sooner rather than later.
I’d wanted to snap at him that I’d lost my parents and first husband in a matter of a few months to traumatic, violent circumstances, only to turn around and have a new marriage arranged for me before my first husband was hardly cold. So some weight loss seems normal when I’d never been particularly curvy to begin with. But of course, I hadn’t, because staying silent these days seems like the safer option.
“Viktor wasveryinsistent, on our wedding night, that he wants a son as soon as possible,” I tell Sofia once the waiter has taken our order and left again.
“Is that a bad thing?” Sofia glances at me. “I know you like children.”
“I do,” I say, picking a bread roll out of the basket and putting it on the small plate in front of me, more to tear apart than to eat, really. “But that’s not all. Viktor has two children already, from his first wife. Two daughters. No one bothered to tell me that.”
“Oh,” Sofia says softly. “So he wants a stepmother for his kids, and a new child too.”
“Basically.” I pick at the roll, feeling my stomach churn at the idea of taking a bite.
“So you’ve met them? Do they like you?”
“The younger one does. Yelena.” I press my lips together, thinking about Anika and the first night I’d been in the house. “The older girl, Anika, is pretty resentful. She still avoids me as much as possible and doesn’t want to talk to me. And it’s hard to blame her, honestly. I know how hard it was to lose my mother as an adult. I can’t imagine how I would have felt at her age.” I pause then, looking up at Sofia, who is listening quietly. “Do you know how Viktor’s first wife died?”
Sofia frowns. “No. How?”
“No, I mean, I’m asking you.” The roll is now a pile of small pieces of bread, and I put one in my mouth, forcing myself to choke it down. “I don’t know, and no one will tell me. And I’m not about to ask Viktor.”
“I don’t know, Cat. I’m sorry.” Sofia shakes her head. “Luca’s never said anything to me about it. I knew he was a widower, but I didn’t think to ask—”
“I guess it must not be that bad then.” I chew another piece of bread. “Luca would have told me if it was, don’t you think? If he like—killed his first wife or something like that?”
“Of course.” Sofia looks faintly horrified. “Luca wouldn’t have given you to a man like that. I know he wouldn’t.”
I want to feel reassured. But it’s hard because while I like and mostly trust Luca, I know from growing up in a mafia family, with my father at the head of it, how complicated these things can be. Even if Viktorhadbeen responsible in some way for his first wife’s death, there’s always a chance that Luca might have gone through with the bargain anyway, for the promise of peace. He might have rested a great deal on that bargain, hoping that the threat of what would happen if it were broken would be enough to keep Viktor from harming me.
Luca promised I would be safe. But I can’t help but wonder just how much I have to be safefrom.
“What about the rest?” Sofia looks at me sympathetically. “He wasn’t too—rough? On the wedding night, I mean?”
I can feel my cheeks flush faintly at that. My wedding night with Viktor is the last thing I want to think about right now. I have to avoid thinking about it every night when he comes to bed and lays down next to me. I remember the pleasure I’d felt that night, the way my body had given itself over to him despite myself. The way he’d lost control—
“It was fine,” I say tightly, biting my lip. “But it won’t happen again.”
Sofia looks at me curiously. “But you said—he wants a baby.”
“And he’ll have one, hopefully.” I swallow hard as the server comes back with our lunch, waiting until the plates are in front of us and they’re gone again before continuing. “I convinced him to use a fertility clinic instead of the normal way. IVF.”
A full moment of silence hangs over the table, and then another, as Sofia stares at me in shock.
“Oh my god,” she says finally. “I can’t believe you got him to agree to that.”
I shrug. “I told him that if he forced me, I’d go to Luca.”
